


Sadness Forks

by mayakovsky



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:03:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayakovsky/pseuds/mayakovsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"<i>Happy</i>." Sherlock's tone drips with disdain, but not outright disgust. It was the sort of disdain she held for things like romance and dealing with hurt feelings and crying children; she said it as if she didn't understand it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sadness Forks

"Don't you ever just..." Lestrade flicks his cigarette so that it lands amongst the broken bottles littered around the skip, the red ember flaring up then fading to a dull burn. "Want to be happy? If not happy, then content?"

" _Happy_." Sherlock's tone drips with disdain, but not outright disgust. It was the sort of disdain she held for things like romance and dealing with hurt feelings and crying children; she said it as if she didn't understand it. "The word's so ambiguous, so misused, people have no idea what it actually means anymore. I would never use the word to describe any portion of my life up to this point. Content, I'd use. Maybe."

Lestrade casts a glance at her sideways, takes in her huddled shoulders that curve around her as if her cigarette were a candle flame she didn't want to go out, her eyes staring at the litter around their feet. Sherlock's words were carefully designed to avoid the question, talking her way around the meaning of things, and Lestrade almost wants to laugh, because he would have fallen for it just months ago. Now, he's not so sure Sherlock didn't avoid the question because she didn't remember being happy in her short lifetime. It's a sobering thought, and his shoulders flex back at the idea.

"Happy's one of those things you define yourself, Sherlock. You pick what it means to you, that's why it's so ambiguous. When I was twenty, I'd have said it was a glass of really shitty beer and a smoke after sex. Now...I think it's doing the right thing. That makes me happy."

She doesn't answer, and they stand in silence long enough for Lestrade to slide another cigarette from his pocket, pinching it between his lips to light it. He starts to suspect that she won't say anything else, which he's entirely used to; she'd managed entire days, before, without a breath, and then would croak out that she would like some tea please, and he would pour her a second mug.

"Music."

When Lestrade looks over again, Sherlock's got her head tipped back, curls crushed and bent against the brick behind them. He holds his breath the way chefs do when they slide souffles from ovens. One wrong hiss of air, and the entire thing could collapse, Sherlock gone off down the alley way beside them and no word from her for a week.

"I didn't want to start the violin, but my fingers weren't long enough for piano" (Lestrade had a hard time believing _that_ , given the amount of times he'd pinched them together as they snuck into his pockets) " and my brother played the viola. And it seemed logical. Mummy wanted a fully-rounded little girl, of course. Dance, music, Latin - boring, Latin, that was before I could control what I sucked up like a sponge. It still takes up too much accidental space." Sherlock huffs, clearly thinking her brain too important for dead languages. "Music made me less of a bitch, I was informed."

Sherlock develops a frown made grotesque by the sharp shadows of the alley, and it's a long few seconds before she speaks again; Lestrade's ears automatically pick out the sound of sirens and yelling and the constant roar of London traffic. Not his crime scene, not tonight. It hasn't occurred to him, in the time since they'd met, that there might be other things that Sherlock loved as much as the grand reveal, as much as being the greatest actress who never saw a stage, as much as the way blood splattered against a wall or the way bones cracked under certain pressure. He almost came to believe that she was a marionette that was picked up when he texted, called, knocked, shouted her name down the street as he saw her dart from a taxi and take off diving into a skip for whatever insane reason.

"At any rate, I've played since I was young. I...enjoy it. So if that's what your happiness is, then I suppose. Fine." She sniffs, much in the same dismissive way she does when Anderson says something that even Lestrade (were he not _mostly_ professional) would agree was stupid, and her hand swings back without looking to smash the cigarette butt in her fingers against the wall.

Lestrade's mouth is turned into a small smile, not enough that Sherlock can see in the shadow he's under but he's positive she can hear it. "That'd do, yeah."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem Spaces by Arkaye Keirulf.
> 
>  _Happiness is simple.  
>  Sadness forks into many roads._


End file.
